At some levels, I am perplexed by this. but it it may jusy be the prism we all look through.


I have been assuming that Obama was going to repolicate his cross-over appeal we saw in Iowa. But CNN says that ther trend amonf the 45% indy voters is toward McCain.

That is surpsiing due to the crowds Obama is seeing and hus 10% or so Iowa bump.

Why would NH indies be looking more favorably on McCain than Obama? Is it the position on the war? Ir is it an anti-Romney factor?

It may not matter all that much if the 10% bump holds, but the drift among indies is very interesting, If it was more substantial, Hillary could surprise tomorrow,

CHICAGO (AP) -- Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Wednesday signed a law moving up the state's primary to Feb. 5, a move certain to help Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the state's junior senator.

As many as 25 states could hold primaries that day, and Illinois joins several delegate-rich states in settling on the early date, including California, New York and New Jersey.

"Illinois is the fifth largest state in the country. The people who live here deserve to play a bigger role in deciding who the presidential candidates will be," Gov. Rod Blagojevich said in a written statement.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/ILL...


The problem wit this is that all this consolidation to a 2/5 primary is that there is no time to get anyone's name off the ballot who should bow out after being an also ran in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire SOuth Carolina or Florida. If no one has clear momentum going into 2/5 (or if a grassroots "anyone but...." occurs then 2/5 is the leading edge of the Perfect Storm.

There is no real cost to staying on the ballot. so it is likely means that 15% of the February 5th vote across 25 states will go to guys who have no shot of winning. That is going to mean 85% split between 4 or 5 candidates and that in turn means that because of a variety of geographic factors no one will emerge after 2/5 as the presumptive nominee.

I am fine with that. But the emerging problem is going to be that we would have run through the first 30 tilts in about three weeks time and it is very likely that no one is going to get a majority of the available delegates and we get into a situation where we have six months of an inter-party cat-fight until the convention where it will be left to super-delegates (party bosses) to determine the nominee.


After 2/5 it is going to very nasty on DU.

Bookmark this post. Because this is going to happen unless two of top four wreck their campaigns between now and Iowa. If Gore gets in (he is not got getting in!) It would only serve to muddy the waters even more.